The Association of Writers and Illustrators for Children (AWIC), which is the Indian arm of the International Board on Books for Young People, in line with its ideas for propagating books and reading habits among children to redeem their mental pains and anguish, conducted a three day conference at the Indian Habitat Centre on the theme – Reading is Healing.
Quite pioneering in its scope, several examples of reading to alleviate mental suffering of the juvenile were highlighted through talks and exhibitions, like the poster exhibition from Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
Spread across four sessions, eminent national and international speakers like Javed Akhtar, Minoru Hataguchi, Paro Anand, Ken Spillman, Suddhasatwa Basu, Barbara Sapienza, Ellis Vance, Anna Grassi among others discussed issues like the effect of atomic bomb tragedy on children, book therapy for psycho-social difficulties, spiritual healing in writing fiction for children, publishers' role in therapy through books, poetry as a supportive and reparative healer.
Ira Saxena, Secretary of AWIC, pointed out that efficacy of this method has been noticed several times like when the children who have undergone deep mental pains and traumas responded positively to the reading sessions conducted by members of AWIC and also other people like their teachers and parents. “The children listened carefully and they could characterize with the story they heard, they drew parallels between the struggles of the character in the story and themselves and eventually understood the way the characters emerged from their own traumas and difficulties,” Saxena said.
Speaking about the origins of this initiative, Saxena commented, “We realised the therapeutic value of books and stories to help children who have undergone trauma and pain on account of both man-made disasters and natural calamities. We then launched the book therapy project to conduct workshops and trainings for teachers, lecturers, facilitators and writers to use books to bring about healing among the suffering children.”
Distinguished writer Paro Anand quoted her experience in Kashmir to demonstrate how effective this method is, “I was reading to a group of children who did not even know what a story is.These were children who were in some way or the other devastated by militancy in the valley, who actually began shaking and crying after what they heard. They saw so much of themselves in those stories that I was taken aback thinking that I had perhaps opened a deep wound so I encouraged these children to make stories of their own, and it is incredible that all of them came out with stories which essayed their own horrors they had undergone over the years because of the unrest around them…Imagine that this was perhaps the first time these children were able to give words to their inner turmoil, bring it out in the open and achieve some proper understanding of their situation and how to cope with the same.”
The stories which are used in the reading session are from a variety of books authored by members of AWIC as well as other national and international writers. A sample of the books used as ‘Healers' was displayed at an exhibition at the venue. AWIC also conferred the annual AWIC Awards in different categories to writers and illustrators who have made a commendable contribution in this rather sensitive genre.
